Gimme A Call: A Book Review

Title: Gimme A Call

Author: Sarah Mlynowski

Genre: YA comedy

Reading Level: 13 and up

Summary: Devi's life isn't turning out at all like she wanted. She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan—cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left.

Not even her stupid cell phone—she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. At age fourteen, three years ago!

Once Devi gets over the shock—and convinces her younger self that she isn't some wacko—she realizes that she's been given an awesome gift. She can tell herself all the right things to do . . . because she's already done all the wrong ones! Who better to take advice from than your future self?

Except . . .what if getting what you think you want changes everything?

Fans of Sarah Mlynowski's Magic in Manhattan series will love this hilarious new novel with a high-concept premise.

My Review: Having been a reader of Sarah's Magic in Manhattan series, I wanted to read this book, because I liked the premise and I really enjoyed reading the MIM series. I thought they we're really hilarious. This one promised to be in the same. It is interesting, but I think this stems more from the readers interest to see how the plot will be resolved. Devi makes some pretty crazy decisions, and they really mess around with her life. At first she's very reckless about what she tells her younger self to do, even though at first her only goal is to rid herself of the pain of breaking up with her boyfriend by telling younger Devi to not go out with him. She starts spreading out and messing with her friends and families life. The results are sometimes bad sometimes good, and it's fun to see what happens. But it wasn't particularly funny. It's easy to read so you can fly through it, but I think it probably would have been better if it were shorter, sometimes messing around with the future can get tedious after a while. The two Devi's although the same person are very different. Young Devi was much more enjoyable to read, she seemed less selfish and caring than her older self. Her older self really comes off as a control freak who is much younger than her age, and seems to care only about herself. But there's a lesson to be learned here of course, and that is the whole point of the book. The other characters we're not very interesting outside of being victims of the ever changing time line. So I guess it all comes to: interesting plot, yet more humor could have been added and it didn't need to be so long.
Content: Nothing too objectionable that I can remember, except some regular teenage gable about relationships.
Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5
Recommend: For fans of cute YA novels